I can't believe that it is a week before Christmas! it seems as though we were just packing away the Christmas decor from last year. So much has happened this year and to tell you the truth, I am happy that this year is almost over. Ok so let's recap my year so far....
My brother in law, passed away just a few weeks after Christmas last year (mid January to be exact) leaving behind 3 kids (20 yr old, 18 yr old and a 15 yr old).
To help my nieces and nephew through this difficult time I offered to make them each a memory quilt using their father's clothing.
This is Tommy's, made from blue jeans, khakis, dress shirts, and ties. I used a Bonnie Hunter pattern to make all 3 quilts.
His dad belonged to the Viper Club, it's a car club that the 2 of them enjoyed together so I took the logo from a t-shirt to place it front and center in the quilt.
This is Kristin's quilt...
and a close up of it.
and this one belongs to Jessie,
and a close up of hers. Since they all wanted large full size quilts (better for wrapping themselves up in when they needed a special hug from their dad), it took me quite a long time to make these. But I finished all 3 (bindings, labels, delivered) the week of Thanksgiving. I am so glad that this huge project is finally done.
But that is not all that I have been doing here at Gecko Quilts. This past fall I announced that I was going to sell my APQS Liberty to purchase a newer larger model with a larger table and that was computerized. After about a month listed on Craigs list, I started to worry that it wouldn't sell quick enough in order for me to have the new set up delivered, and have time to get use to it before my Grand Re-opening in January. So I ended up going with my plan B. Which was to keep my APQS Liberty but upgrade to the larger and newer table that is available and add Quilt Path (the computerized portion) to it. It all got delivered the week of Thanksgiving.
Here are the new upgrades in my living room waiting for my DH to put it all together. Of course when I went to take the picture Hossa (my daughter's dog) thought I wanted to take his picture so he posed for the camera.
These are my old rails and carriage from my old 12 ft table
and my DH Chris putting together the new 14ft table.
He thought it would be a good idea if he read the directions on how to attach the new carriage to the table.
There were a lot more wires and parts than my old set up had.
Here's the new carriage on the table. It has a belt on it to make the machine move vertical on the table. There is also another belt that spans the length of the table to move the machine horizontal on the table.
Here is my APQS Liberty all upgraded on her new longer table and decked out with her Surface Pro 3 tablet. After we got it to this part the system wouldn't work like it was suppose to...after several weeks of swapping out this part for that one and replacing one thing for another...APQS decided that the only thing that didn't get replaced at this point was the carriage itself. Se they shipped us out another new carriage. Yup, wouldn't you know the very last thing that we swapped out was the problem. So now that the problems have been resolved I decided to take it for a test ride....
This is the small quilt I put on the machine to test it out. It will be turned into a sewing machine cover for my Bernina sewing machine. I just went with a basic meander for my first try...the pattern is called BAM...and will be featured all year long in the seasonal pantographs that I offer.
Well that should catch you all up on what is going on here at Gecko Quilts....everything is up and running (with just a few more additions needing to be added to the website) and we will be right on schedule for the Grand Re-opening in January!!!!! I am so ready to get back to longarming!!! Have a Merry Christmas, and I hope to see you in the next few months.
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